Famous Affinities of History — Complete eBook

Then, by degrees, as Jane Carlyle’s mind began
to wane, she transferred her jealousy to her husband
himself. She hated to be out-shone, and now,
in some misguided fashion, it came into her head that
Carlyle had surrendered to Lady Ashburton his own
attention to his wife, and had fallen in love with
her brilliant rival.

On one occasion, she declared that Lady Ashburton
had thrown herself at Carlyle’s feet, but that
Carlyle had acted like a man of honor, while Lord
Ashburton, knowing all the facts, had passed them
over, and had retained his friendship with Carlyle.

Now, when Froude came to write My Relations with Carlyle,
there were those who were very eager to furnish him
with every sort of gossip. The greatest source
of scandal upon which he drew was a woman named Geraldine
Jewsbury, a curious neurotic creature, who had seen
much of the late Mrs. Carlyle, but who had an almost
morbid love of offensive tattle. Froude describes
himself as a witness for six years, at Cheyne Row,
“of the enactment of a tragedy as stern and
real as the story of Oedipus.” According
to his own account:

I stood by, consenting to the slow martyrdom of a
woman whom I have described as bright and sparkling
and tender, and I uttered no word of remonstrance.
I saw her involved in a perpetual blizzard, and did
nothing to shelter her.

But it is not upon his own observations that Froude
relies for his most sinister evidence against his
friend. To him comes Miss Jewsbury with a lengthy
tale to tell. It is well to know what Mrs. Carlyle
thought of this lady. She wrote:

It is her besetting sin, and her trade of novelist
has aggravated it—­the desire of feeling
and producing violent emotions. ... Geraldine
has one besetting weakness; she is never happy unless
she has a grande passion on hand.

There were strange manifestations on the part of Miss
Jewsbury toward Mrs. Carlyle. At one time, when
Mrs. Carlyle had shown some preference for another
woman, it led to a wild outburst of what Miss Jewsbury
herself called “tiger jealousy.” There
are many other instances of violent emotions in her
letters to Mrs. Carlyle. They are often highly
charged and erotic. It is unusual for a woman
of thirty-two to write to a woman friend, who is forty-three
years of age, in these words, which Miss Jewsbury used
in writing to Mrs. Carlyle:

You are never out of my thoughts one hour together.
I think of you much more than if you were my lover.
I cannot express my feelings, even to you—­vague,
undefined yearnings to be yours in some way.

Mrs. Carlyle was accustomed, in private, to speak
of Miss Jewsbury as “Miss Gooseberry,”
while Carlyle himself said that she was simply “a
flimsy tatter of a creature.” But it is
on the testimony of this one woman, who was so morbid
and excitable, that the most serious accusations against
Carlyle rest. She knew that Froude was writing
a volume about Mrs. Carlyle, and she rushed to him,
eager to furnish any narratives, however strange,
improbable, or salacious they might be.